Tuesday, May 31, 2011

This blog has written extensively about the Obama administration's April 4 directive to colleges that, to be compliant with Title IX, they must apply the lowest standard of proof for all college disciplinary proceedings involving sexual harassment (which includes sexual assault): a "preponderance of the evidence standard," which means that there need only be a slight probability that the offense occurred in order to hold the accused (almost always a male for sex offenses) responsible. Until the directive, the vast majority of institutions applied the "clear and convincing" evidence standard, which means that to find an accused responsible for sexual assault, the school must produce evidence that unequivocally establishes a very high probability that the alleged assault occurred.

Maybe that's too theoretical a concept for some folks. A prominent men's rights advocate wrote to me when we were beating the drum on this issue: "[P]eople are not going to understand this 'preponderance of evidence' thing, unfortunately."

Great. A lot of our readers would rather talk about "game" and all sorts of other things that, all due respect, don't seem especially important to me when I've got emails from guys facing prison time for rapes they didn't commit.

Alright. Let's be more direct. Let's try a different approach and illustrate how your son is screwed if a girl at college accuses him of sexual assault. Let's say the girl files a complaint with the school and with the police at the same time. The claim is bullshit, and you hire an attorney to defend your son.

Next, your son's criminal attorney's first instinct is to get the college hearing postponed. Why? When you're accused of a crime, you have the right to remain silent both in the police investigation and in the trial against you. That's often the best advice, because the police are looking to build a case against you and they often take what you say -- even though it may seem innocent to you -- and twist it, and pound it, and make you appear to be a liar. Or a rapist. So, as FIRE has explained: "If you have both a university disciplinary hearing and a criminal trial pending, you will almost always want to get your disciplinary hearing postponed until after the criminal matter is settled. Holding the disciplinary hearing before the criminal trial can be very dangerous, because what you say at the campus hearing-where you have far fewer protections than in a court of law-can be used against you in the criminal case"

Well, in light of the Obama administration's April 4 directive, forget that. The directive provides that "a criminal investigation into allegations of sexual violence does not relieve the school of its duty under Title IX to resolve complaints promptly and equitably." The college might “delay temporarily the fact-finding portion” of its investigation “while the police are gathering evidence,” but the “school must promptly resume and complete its fact-finding” even before charges are resolved in the criminal justice system. So, if your son wants to defend himself by testifying in the college hearing, he runs the risk that whatever he says will be used against him by the government in the criminal proceeding, and that's usually too risky.

Nice catch-22, isn't it? So your son's college career is finished based solely on her allegation, and he's expelled.

Your son's college -- to which you've paid tens of thousands of dollars -- has just destroyed him solely because some woman made a bullshit rape accusation against him. Maybe he'll get a job at a convenience store, but his life will never be what it should have been.

The anti-male crusaders on our college campuses finally have your son where they want him: by the balls. In fact, they've got 'em in a vise, and they're tightening it, slowly but surely.

This blog has written extensively about the Obama administration's April 4 directive to colleges that, to be compliant with Title IX, they must apply the lowest standard of proof for all college disciplinary proceedings involving sexual harassment (which includes sexual assault): a "preponderance of the evidence standard," which means that there need only be a slight probability that the offense occurred in order to hold the accused (almost always a male for sex offenses) responsible. Until the directive, the vast majority of institutions applied the "clear and convincing" evidence standard, which means that to find an accused responsible for sexual assault, the school must produce evidence that unequivocally establishes a very high probability that the alleged assault occurred.

This is how far we've come: students at Australian National University plan to protest the appearance on campus of a controversial sex therapist who teaches views that are supposedly offensive to women.Does this sex therapist teach that women shouldn't dress like sluts? That they should take precautions in hooking up that men don't have to take? That they shouldn't drink around men they don't know?

None of the above. Bettina Arndt, a self-described "card-carrying feminist," teaches that "women have a right to say no, but . . ." -- wait for it -- "men and women should think about the impact of rejection on their partners, and some may choose to say yes a little more often."

Horrors! Partners should actually make sacrifices for one another? Why it's heresy!

Bettina Arndt explains: ''My message is that some women can enjoy sex without desire and perhaps they should explore that as an option. This is an emerging area of research. Men should also make love to their partners if they are persistently rejecting them, which often happens when older men become nervous about performance.''

Until lately, to suggest that couples should practice selflessness and to make sacrifices for one another was perfectly rational to every thinking human being. Somewhere along the line, though, it became verboten to suggest that selflessness be practiced in the bedroom, unless it was just men who were being told to be selfless.

And, of course, the big student protest isn't driven some grassroots effort by disgruntled young people. It's being organized on Facebook by the ANU Women's Department. Who would have thought?

Women's officer Kate McMurtrie said Arndt's views were damaging to young people and her attitudes should not be invited or heralded at the ANU.

''The department does not believe sex should be an 'obligation' by either party in a relationship. The idea that it's a woman's responsibility to have sex with their partner is more akin to notions of proprietary interests or a chore like doing the dishes,'' she said.

The real problem might be that Ms. Arndt thinks women have become self-centered. In an interview, Ms. Arndt bemoaned the fact that "women started thinking about 'me'. The Me Generation, I think, particularly applied to women, where women started looking at their lives as something other than, you know, someone's wife and someone's mother and started thinking about themselves, and that was disaster, I think, for marriage . . . ." http://www.abc.net.au/talkingheads/txt/s1951266.htm

So that's where we are. We've reached the point where a feminist can't suggest that men are human beings with interests worth considering without a Women's Studies department stirring up a student protest to quash that idea before it gains currency. Spin it any way you want, it's man-hating, pure and simple. It's the type of attitude that leads young women to believe that men are predatory pigs, and that an unfavorable sexual experience is rape. And it's the reason a hell of a lot of good men who believe in equality between the sexes simply can't and simply won't join hands to work with the angry women who preach such hatred.

This is how far we've come: students at Australian National University plan to protest the appearance on campus of a controversial sex therapist who teaches views that are supposedly offensive to women.

Language matters. We sometimes even hold people responsible for the language they use. Well, depending on the group offended.Male broadcasters are not permitted to refer to conservative women broadcasters as "talk sluts," as we recently observed. Male broadcasters aren't permitted to call black members of a women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." Male late night comedians are not permitted to make sex "jokes" about the daughter of a former vice presidential candidate. White male sports analysts aren't allowed to to say that blacks were "bred to be the better athlete . . . ."

Each of the men who made those remarks, and countless others, have been punished for offending members of the group who identify with the person(s) they referenced.

Other times, people get away with saying things on the air that are just wrong, but since no group is offended, the remark passes.

This morning on "The Wall Street Journal This Morning," a news broadcast that airs on stations across America, news anchor Gina Cervetti referred to the accuser of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as "the victim." Specifically, she noted that the defense team apparently was planning to go after "the victim."

We must assume that Cervetti, an experienced journalist, knows how to pick her words carefully. Underlying Cervetti's use of that term is an assumption that the unnamed accuser was raped by the ex-IMF chief.

By labeling the accuser the "victim" before a single scrap of evidence has been admitted at trial, much less an adjudication of guilt, Cervetti impliedly rushed to judgment and declared the unnamed accuser's allegation to be factual. Such a description does a grave disservice to (1) the presumptively innocent who are accused of such crimes since, by necessity, they must be guilty if their accusers are, in fact, "victims"; (2) actual rape victims, because Cervetti trivializes rape when she includes among its victims women who may or may not be actual victims; and (3) her listeners, who are entitled to accurate reporting but receive something less than that when she transforms an accuser into a "victim."

No one -- aside from his friends and, I dare say, this blog -- is going to go to bat for Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The general consensus, whether it's true or not, is that he is part of a culture of male privilege that has, in the words of Maureen Dowd, "the sexual norms of a libidinous pirate ship." It would, of course, be much easier to buy into the general consensus if it didn't also hold that the typical American college boy -- who, truth be told, generally has minimal sexual experience of any kind, much less of the predatory variety -- holds similar sexual norms.

There are howls of protest when a male broadcaster uses a word that disparages women or blacks, and rightly so. But no one gives a damn when a broadcaster on a show that airs coast-to-coast assumes a presumptively innocent man's guilt on a rape charge in a way so casual, so matter-of-factly, that it seems perfectly natural and true.

Two women, both of whom are underage, supplied alcohol to a group of kids under 14.It all started when someone called to report a sexual assault, that police subsequently determined never happened.

Brianda Lopez was arrested, but it appears, based on the article, that Lauren Berry is still being sought. The odd thing here is that ten juveniles were arrested as well and charged with various offenses.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Newsweek shines a light on how the cops in NYPD's Special Victims Division decide whether a rape claim is true or false. The story centers on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case (the cops think he's guilty), but the more interesting comments concern rape and false rape claims in general. Please bear in mind that too many false rape reports that we chronicle here, in this blog, involve cops who initially thought a woman was telling the truth, only to find out she lied.My comments are interspersed:

Excerpts from "To Catch a Creep" found hereDoes a woman who claims to have been raped ask for a female detective? That’s taken as a sign of possible deception. “I am betting nine out of 10 times, when a woman asks for a female detective the story is going to be untrue,” says [Lt. Adam Lamboy, commander of the Manhattan Special Victims Squad, the unit handling the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case]. The operative theory is that women who are lying think female cops will be more receptive to their stories.

[Some police departments have women cops especially assigned to deal with rape "victims" -- the idea being that women can only feel comfortable talking to another woman. The NYPD suggests that's the wrong approach.]. . . .Inevitably, some detectives sympathize with the accusers. “People with power take advantage,” says a detective in Brooklyn who is not part of the Strauss-Kahn investigation but finally couldn’t resist making a point about it. “The defense is always that those people are a target because they have money. Well, I am glad that a victim who has no power, an underdog in society, is being believed.”

[At least the cops are up-front with their biases. People with power are assumed guilty. This includes college lacrosse players barely older than boys who happen to be completely innocent.]. . . .In sex-crime cases, victims often tell only part of the story. Or they make it up altogether. If they’re drunk or drugged, they often don’t remember enough to make a case . . . .

[Um, if they are "making it up," how are they "victims"? That aside, when I write things like this, I am accused of being a rape apologizing misogynist. When Newsweek prints a cop saying it, the whole country takes it seriously. As well they should, because it is correct.]. . . .The last thing any detective wants, says Lt. Robert Johnson of Brooklyn Special Victims, “is to paint someone with that rapist brush and find out they are not, because the paint never comes off.”

[Again, I make this point all the time only to be pooh-poohed by the people who dominate the public discourse about rape.]. . . .One afternoon last week, a Mexican immigrant arrested for sexually molesting his 7-year-old stepdaughter sat in “the box,” as the detectives call their interview rooms. He was at the same round table with two mismatched office chairs where Strauss-Kahn spent his first night in custody, and one detective asked another if he should be moved to the holding cell on the other side of the office. “Leave my perp alone,” said Liz Gutierrez, the only woman detective left on the squad.

[Liz Gutierrez's atrociously insensitive comment will not be the subject of any national outcry calling for her job, but it should be. The man is not a "perp," Ms. Gutierrez. He's a presumptively innocent human being. And you should be fired for your comment.]. . . .A crucial part of the picture is “the outcry,” short for the witness who is the first person the victim tells about a rape or assault. Did the outcry hear the same story the victim is telling the cops? In a recent high-profile case, Special Victims detectives grew suspicious of Heidi Jones, a local TV meteorologist who claimed she’d been raped in Central Park, when the outcry’s story didn’t match up with hers. Jones now faces charges of filing a false police report. In the Manhattan Special Victims Squad last week they were interviewing the outcry for a 14-year-old girl who’d been gang-raped by seven men and boys the day before. Unlike Strauss-Kahn’s, her case didn’t make any news.

For the maid at the Sofitel, the outcry was a hotel employee, according to law-enforcement sources not in Special Victims. The maid told the same story to everybody. Sandomir says that when he interviews a victim he tells her, “Let’s play a game: you are a camcorder.” He’s looking for a minute-by-minute, even second-by-second, account of the location, the sex acts, and not only the attacker’s appearance, but his smell—of alcohol, of dirt, of cologne, of anything that can be used as a clue. Along with the details come contradictions, and over repeated interviews the anomalies multiply if the subject is lying. “When people come in to make allegations,” says Steven Lane, the other lead detective on the Strauss-Kahn case, “they don’t realize we are going to go frame by frame.”

[All very interesting. But they make it sound too scientific. Law enforcement in general needs to do a better job with rape cases; cops are too often too quick to arrest and to destroy before the investigation is completed.]

Newsweek shines a light on how the cops in NYPD's Special Victims Division decide whether a rape claim is true or false. The story centers on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case (the cops think he's guilty), but the more interesting comments concern rape and false rape claims in general. Please bear in mind that too many false rape reports that we chronicle here, in this blog, involve cops who initially thought a woman was telling the truth, only to find out she lied.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Vladek Filler was found not guilty on the charge of raping his wife, as we predicted. As important as this was for Mr. Filler, the more important part was the appellate court's ruling last year that gave Mr. Filler a new trial.

As Robert Franklin explained explained at the time: "[T]he appellate court agreed with Filler and the trial court that he should get another chance to prove his innocence. But it went further than the trial court saying that, in the new trial, Filler can bring in all of the evidence about the custody matter and the fact that none of the allegations had been made until custody became an issue. That’s obviously important to Vladek Filler, but, since it’s a ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court, it’s also important to countless other men in Maine. No more will their criminal trials on allegations of domestic abuse be marred by their inability to adduce evidence that the charges arose in the course of child custody cases." See here: http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=9950

Vladek Filler was found not guilty on the charge of raping his wife, as we predicted. As important as this was for Mr. Filler, the more important part was the appellate court's ruling last year that gave Mr. Filler a new trial.

As Robert Franklin explained explained at the time: "[T]he appellate court agreed with Filler and the trial court that he should get another chance to prove his innocence. But it went further than the trial court saying that, in the new trial, Filler can bring in all of the evidence about the custody matter and the fact that none of the allegations had been made until custody became an issue. That’s obviously important to Vladek Filler, but, since it’s a ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court, it’s also important to countless other men in Maine. No more will their criminal trials on allegations of domestic abuse be marred by their inability to adduce evidence that the charges arose in the course of child custody cases." See here: http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=9950

Friday, May 27, 2011

Recently on Facebook, quite a few of my friends (some of whom I've never met in my life) have featured photos of adorable new additions to their families. Sometimes they're a son or daughter, sometimes a grand, or a niece or nephew.

The ones posting the photos are uniformly delighted with the little bundle of joy that God has graced their family with. Judging by their comments, friends are also delighted to offer their congrats and observations about the precious little one.I gush along with everyone else. I can't help but see babies as a blessing for mankind -- the embodiment of the future, of continuity and hope for the whole human family. A marvelous reminder that there's more to earthly existence than war, calamity and wrongdoing.

But sometimes, I wonder what awaits these little ones in the future. What does our going-crazy culture hold in store for them? Every year, a million of their generation never make it out of the womb alive -- the victims of feminist-touted "reproductive freedom."

Those who make it into the world are far from home free, though. Almost five children under the age of four die every day as a result of child abuse. Statistics gathered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicate that children in mother-only households are almost 4 times more likely to be fatally abused (i.e., murdered) than children in father-only households. I haven't seen this blamed on "rape culture" yet -- perhaps there are still some claims about rape culture so insane that even man-hating rad-fems will not go there. Or perhaps they know that abuse is often perpetrated by those who were abused -- regardless of gender.

If a child is destined to grow up in a family without a father, there's a real possibility of a grim future for him or her, a greater likelihood for a host of social pathologies -- poverty, dropping out of school, drug abuse, early sexual experimentation, crime and, perhaps the most sobering, suicide.

Millions of children, of course, do not grow up abused and at risk for these elements of society. For that we can be thankful. And yet, even the fortunate among the sons and daughters of our society face a future filled with risks earlier generations knew nothing about.

Daughters increasingly risk losing out on wife-and-motherhood to pursue careers that will never comfort them in their retirement years like children and grandchildren would.

And anyone who reads this blog can see what lies in wait for sons -- the possibility of being falsely accused of rape, a possibility that's increasing due to the deliberate manipulation of academia and jurisprudence by organized feminism. That possibility is joined by diminishing opportunity for education, an ever shrinking job market and the loss of children in divorce.

Is this really what the progressives of the last century -- the feminists, the champions of diversity, the share-the-wealth advocates and their fellow travelers -- really wanted? Or has their long march through the institutions of our culture resulted in a cultural calamity they could not have foreseen?

Maybe I'm just in a gloomy mood from the deadly weather outbreaks my area this spring. Or maybe it's the national debt, or the fact that I'm still suspicious that my N'Waluns-style fried-oyster po'boy is "dressed" with BP oil....

If you've just got to worry, you can always find a reason. And really, what generation has ever faced a risk-free future? None that I know of.

I just hope our culture will come to its senses and correct the mistakes we've made so those coming along behind us will have a future worth living in.

Recently on Facebook, quite a few of my friends (some of whom I've never met in my life) have featured photos of adorable new additions to their families. Sometimes they're a son or daughter, sometimes a grand, or a niece or nephew.

The ones posting the photos are uniformly delighted with the little bundle of joy that God has graced their family with. Judging by their comments, friends are also delighted to offer their congrats and observations about the precious little one.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Hannah Patenall was spared jail after she had five young men arrested on a false rape claim.

Patenall, then 17, had sex with three men, then called police and, using a fake name, claimed she had been forcibly raped. As a result, five men, ages 18 to 21, were arrested.

The police accepted Patenall's word over that of the five young men. They told detectives that Patenall had approached them in the street and offered them sex.

Two of the men spent 24 hours in police custody; three spent 13 hours, and all were asked to provide body fluid samples. They were released and on bail for five weeks.It turns out the police arrested the men before reviewing the evidence. One of the men found a recording on his phone of his sexual encounter with Patenall which showed she had consented. In addition, police later examined CCTV footage and saw the girl walking with the men and with her arm around one and kissing one.

Despite the young men's ordeal of being falsely accused of a vile crime and wrongly incarcerated, despite the fact that Patenall apparently initiated the encounter that led to consensual sex with the young men, Judge Michael Kay had no sympathy for the young men. He said that although the five did not deserve what happened following their encounter with the girl, they were not "basking in glory" because of their "behaviour."

The Judge further made it clear that he considered Patenall not a free moral agent who was fully capable of deciding whether to engage in a wild, albeit stupid, sexual encounter, but, in fact, the real victim here: "You were plainly vulnerable, 17 at the time and these young men were quite prepared to take advantage of the unfortunate situation." (It is, of course, unclear what "unfortunate situation" the men were "tak[ing] advantage" of, since it appears she was the initiator.)

Her attorney told the court that she had mental health issues and was suffering from a personality disorder. Judge Kay described the case as having elements that were "sordid, sad and distressing."

As befitting Patenall's status as the real victim here, the judge spared her a custodial sentence. Patenall was given a 12-month sentence in a young offenders' institution suspended for two years and made the subject of a mental health treatment requirement for the next 18 months. She was also placed on supervision for 18 months.

The Crime Victims' Institute at Sam Houston State University has completed a study called "Adolescent Sexual Behavior and the Law" after examining various state laws that have been adopted to protect minors from sexual abuse by adults or peers. The study found that underage teens having consensual, close-in-age relationships are being processed through the courts and as a result often are labeled as sex offenders. Many states have so-called "Romeo and Juliet" laws that decriminalize close-in-age adolescent sexual behavior, but many states do not.

The study also found a disturbing gender bias when teens having sex are legally both the victim and both the offender: "In some states a gender bias in prosecuting offenders is especially prominent when both partners of a sex act are under the age of consent. . . . . it is more common to see the prosecution of only the male." (Adolescent Sexual Behavior and the Law at page 13.)

For example, the study cites an Arizona case where a 13 year old boy was convicted of having consensual sex with his older, 15 year old girlfriend.

The Crime Victims' Institute at Sam Houston State University has completed a study called "Adolescent Sexual Behavior and the Law" after examining various state laws that have been adopted to protect minors from sexual abuse by adults or peers. The study found that underage teens having consensual, close-in-age relationships are being processed through the courts and as a result often are labeled as sex offenders. Many states have so-called "Romeo and Juliet" laws that decriminalize close-in-age adolescent sexual behavior, but many states do not.

The study also found a disturbing gender bias when teens having sex are legally both the victim and both the offender: "In some states a gender bias in prosecuting offenders is especially prominent when both partners of a sex act are under the age of consent. . . . . it is more common to see the prosecution of only the male." (Adolescent Sexual Behavior and the Law at page 13.)

For example, the study cites an Arizona case where a 13 year old boy was convicted of having consensual sex with his older, 15 year old girlfriend.

Imagine having the police pay you a visit one day. You have no idea why. They tell you that you are under arrest for allegedly raping a girl. They handcuff you, and take you to the police station. Television cameras are conveniently present to capture the moment so that the entire community can titillate to your humiliation. The alleged rape, you learn, didn't happen last week. Nor last month. Nor last year. Nope. How about twelve years ago? You can't remember much about what you did twelve years ago, but you know you didn't do that, and you deny it. But they arrest you just the same, and they charge you with rape. And then they schedule a trial where, if you are convicted, you likely will spend the rest of your life behind bars.Oh, in case I didn't mention it, this story takes place in the United States of America. Pennsylvania to be exact.

You think I'm making this up?

Meet Michael Gallagher, a retired Pennsylvania schoolteacher who was arrested in 1998 for allegedly repeatedly raping a then-fifth grade girl during the 1985-1986 school year at Willow Hill Elementary School in the Abington School District. He was shown on television in handcuffs, to the horror of his wife, family and friends, all because a woman decided to fabricate a twelve year old rape claim against him.

Mr. Gallagher experienced nine months of hell. "Unless you've been a victim of a false accusation, you cannot believe the mental pain and suffering our family has been through for the last nine months,'' Gallagher said.

Trial was scheduled for November 30, 1998, but in October 1998, Mr. Gallagher was exonerated. The Montgomery County district attorney who was planning to send Mr. Gallagher away for many years, announced that the purported victim, whose name is Margaret Powell, had made up the story.

"We have determined that Mr. Gallagher was wrongfully accused by the young lady involved,'' District Attorney Michael Marino said when he announced that all the charges against Mr. Gallagher had been dropped.

It seems prosecutors found serious discrepancies in Powell's story. During pretrial interviews with Powell, she had told prosecutors that she had not told her father about the incidents when they occurred; in September, Marino said, she said she had told him. "That was the first inconsistency,'' Marino said. "There were many others after that.'' Powell began changing her story. "She began to add additional details,'' said another prosecutor. "It seemed to me she was trying to embellish the case and make it better as we moved closer to trial, which raised my suspicions.'' The last straw came when Powell admitted that she was "not sure'' whether sexual intercourse with Gallagher had taken place. Prosecutors then decided to drop the charges. Powell was never charged.

Mr. Gallagher's story was big news. It ran on Dateline NBC in December of 1998. But after his moment of fame, what did Michael Gallagher do? Did he stick his head in the sand? Did he pretend nothing ever happened and turn his back on the community of the falsely accused? Did he write to news outlets and blogs asking them to remove his name from their Web sites so that no one would know of his ordeal (as some men have done with this blog)?

None of the above. Michael Gallagher wants to help other people who are falsely accused. For more than ten years, he has been quietly working to change the law in Pennsylvania to make it a felony to falsely report a felony to authorities. Such offense would carry a sentence of up to seven years in prison. Presently false reporting is a misdemeanor in Pennsylvania, and it carries a maximum two year prison sentence.

Mr. Gallagher has worked behind the scenes four times to get the bill passed, to no avail.

This week, Mr. Gallagher reports that he received word from State Representative Tom Murt that his bill to make the false reporting of serious crimes in Pennsylvania a felony offense is now in the state House Judiciary Committee and should have enough sponsors, both Democrat and Republican, to pass the House. Mr. Gallagher holds Mr. Murt, also a former teacher, in the highest regard.

On behalf of all our readers, we salute you, Mr. Gallagher, and your faithful wife.

The Bossier City Police Department (BCPD) released a man charged with forcible rape after his wife admitted she fabricated her accusations.

More and more lately, we are seeing those who have been charged with a false report of rape, named, and addresses given as well. The naming part, comes as a breath of fresh air. The press is not shielding criminal acts with anonymity.

The possible sentence he faced: between 5 and 40 years in prison, with him having to server at least 2 years before becoming eligible for parole.

The possible sentence she faces: up to 5 years, and a fine of up to $5,000.

Imagine having the police pay you a visit one day. You have no idea why. They tell you that you are under arrest for allegedly raping a girl. They handcuff you, and take you to the police station. Television cameras are conveniently present to capture the moment so that the entire community can titillate to your humiliation. The alleged rape, you learn, didn't happen last week. Nor last month. Nor last year. Nope. How about twelve years ago? You can't remember much about what you did twelve years ago, but you know you didn't do that, and you deny it. But they arrest you just the same, and they charge you with rape. And then they schedule a trial where, if you are convicted, you likely will spend the rest of your life behind bars.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Chelsea Ann Johnson of Dearing told police that Donteveous Coleman, a co-worker at Zaxby's, dragged her into a restroom at the Washington Road restaurant on April 25 and raped her.Mr. Coleman has been released, but it still awaiting the charges to be formally dropped, which will require a court action.

Probably the most interesting aspect of this case is that Johnson took a polygraph test, which indicated she was being deceptive, and after further questioning, admitted she lied.

I can only surmise, since a polygraph is neither mandatory nor needed, why she took one? My guess, is hubris, and that she thought she could pass it, and that would lend credence to her claim.

Johnson was arrested Friday and released the next day on a $6,050 bond.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

We've avoided discussion of the worldwide "Slut Walks" because they are meaningless exercises in straw men-ery intended to justify the existence of the sexual grievance industry so that it gets more funding, and to transmogrify the real reasons women aren't believed when they cry rape.First, the suggestion that rape claims aren't instantly believed by most people, regardless of the way the woman was dressed, regardless of the absence of supporting evidence, and regardless of how far-fetched the claim, is belied by the facts. Every absurd-on-its-face false rape claim we've reported here was instantly believed by most people when it was first made. That includes police and media. Can you say "Hofstra"? See here: http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/p/lamb-to-slaughter-hofstra-false-rape.html

Second, to the extent legitimate rape claims are doubted (and these are in the minority), the principal reason isn't the way women dress, it's that false rape claims, which are common, diminish the integrity of even legitimate rape claims. Judges bemoan the effects of false rape claims in false rape case after false rape case after false rape case. You'd think someone would finally start listening to them. But instead of enhancing the integrity of rape victims by joining with us to try to eradicate false rape claims, women and men the world over have taken to the streets to insist that women aren't believed because of . . . the way women dress.

It is as ludicrous as it is dishonest.

Let's briefly focus on one aspect of the slut walk "philosophy" to test its veracity. It goes something like this: in our "rape culture," men are afforded a free pass to sexually abuse women who dress in a sexualized manner because men are assumed not to be able to control themselves. Therefore, it's up to women not to dress in a sexualized manner.

I won't spend time trying to refute this inanity. Yes, I am quite certain that, for example, parents across America admonish their daughters who claim they've been raped if those daughters have put themselves in situations where, common sense tells us, rape is more likely to occur. Usually the problem isn't the daughter's dress as much as other things, like drinking to excess at wild parties with men they don't know. Such admonishments, of course, are not "victim blaming," they are good parenting. What is often not mentioned is that those same parents do not, in any manner, give the rapist a free pass because he is supposedly unable to control himself. If given the opportunity, those same parents would castrate the young man and shove his testicles down his throat.

No sane and rational person in 2011 believes rapists should be given a free pass because of the way women dress, and to suggest otherwise is a vapid straw man.

I note, in passing, the following interesting double-standard: while every sane and rational person believes that men have both the capacity and the duty to control themselves when it comes to rape, feminists don't seem to believe that women should be held to the same standard when it comes to false rape claims. Rape culture, Amanda Hess claims, is the reason women falsely cry rape. Among the ways this manifests itself is when "the woman had desired the sex all along, but must defend her femininity by saying that she had been coerced into sex." See here.

Get it? Men who commit sexual assault = no excuses; women who make false rape claims = merely defending their femininity.

I must be honest: the most difficult part about writing this blog is that I am forced treat inane propositions as if they were legitimate just so I can expose them for what they are.

We've avoided discussion of the worldwide "Slut Walks" because they are meaningless exercises in straw men-ery intended to justify the existence of the sexual grievance industry so that it gets more funding, and to transmogrify the real reasons women aren't believed when they cry rape.

As we've often discussed on this blog, there should be varying punishments for a false allegation of rape or sexual assault, depending on how far the case/investigation goes, whether someone is arrested or not, along with several other factors.In the following story, Amanda Moyes has received one year in jail.

The reason she said she was raped? She cheated on the man she was in a relationship with. She left for three days and had consensual sex with the man she accused, then, when she went back to the man she was in a relationship with, she said she was raped.

The man she accused spent almost a day in jail over her accusation. Unless you have been in his shoes, you can only imagine what he went through mentally during that time in custody.

She also was given a year suspended sentence for perverting the course of justice.

As we've often discussed on this blog, there should be varying punishments for a false allegation of rape or sexual assault, depending on how far the case/investigation goes, whether someone is arrested or not, along with several other factors.

Monday, May 23, 2011

When this blog complained last week about the treatment that presumptively innocent ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn received after being accused of rape by a member of a New York hotel's housekeeping staff, I could almost hear the eyes rolling by the usual crowd that thinks we MUST be rape apologizing misogynists because we have the audacity to say the presumptively innocent shouldn't be treated as if they are vile rapists.Well, look who agrees with us. Naomi Wolf. Here's an excerpt of what she writes about it:

"After a chambermaid reportedly told her supervisor at the elegant Sofitel hotel that she had been sexually assaulted, the suspect was immediately tracked down, escorted off a plane just before its departure, and arrested. High-ranking detectives, not lowly officers, were dispatched to the crime scene. The DNA evidence was sequenced within hours, not the normal eight or nine days. By the end of the day’s news cycle, New York City police spokespeople had made uncharacteristic and shockingly premature statements supporting the credibility of the victim’s narrative — before an investigation was complete.

"The accused was handcuffed and escorted before television cameras — a New York tradition known as a 'perp walk.' The suspect was photographed naked, which is also unusual, initially denied bail and held in solitary confinement. The Police Commissioner has boasted to the press that Strauss-Kahn is strip-searched now multiple times a day — also unheard-of.

"By the end of the second day’s news cycle, senior public officials had weakened the presumption of innocence, a cornerstone of any civilized society’s justice system. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was calling for Strauss-Kahn’s resignation from the IMF, and Bloomberg remarked, in response to objections to Straus-Kahn’s perp walk, 'don’t do the crime.' Whatever happened in that hotel room, Strauss-Kahn’s career, and his presumption of innocence, was effectively over — before any legal process had even begun."

When this blog complained last week about the treatment that presumptively innocent ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn received after being accused of rape by a member of a New York hotel's housekeeping staff, I could almost hear the eyes rolling by the usual crowd that thinks we MUST be rape apologizing misogynists because we have the audacity to say the presumptively innocent shouldn't be treated as if they are vile rapists.

I came across an old Ann Landers column that brilliantly illustrates perhaps the single greatest stumbling block to raising awareness about the gravity of the false rape problem. A reader of Ann Landers succinctly summed up the fundamental injustice faced by the falsely accused, an injustice as true now as it was then. But it is Ms. Lander's response to the letter that is problematic:Dear Ann Landers: Several months ago, you printed a letter from my mother, who signed herself, "Heartbroken in Texas."She told what it was like to have her son falsely accused of rape. You might be interested in how things turned out.

Just before the case was to go to trial, all charges were dropped. Prosecutors found conclusive evidence that the woman was lying. So after 14 months of a living hell and nearly $20,000 in legal fees, my nerve-racking ordeal is over.

I consider myself lucky. Unlike most men falsely accused of rape, I was fortunate enough to have proof that the woman was lying. I hired an attorney, and we filed hefty lawsuits against the woman and the police department that investigated her claim. My nightmare is over, but hers is just beginning.

The frightening thing about all this is how easy it was for her to get me arrested, charged and indicted by a grand jury. I was only one more bad break away from prison.

The political climate is changing. Once upon a time, authorities greeted claims of date rape with skepticism. Now they blindly believe almost any claim, no matter how improbable.

I have no doubt that at this moment, there are many men in prison on rape convictions who are as innocent as I am. My heart goes out to all of them. - Lucky in New England

Dear N.E.: So does mine, but I'll bet an equal number of men who are guilty of rape are walking around, free as the breeze.

Too often, the woman is reluctant to file charges and risk the publicity, so she keeps quiet. Or she files, the court is not convinced of the man's guilt and he's off the hook.

Ann Landers posits a 57-word response to a very sincere letter that discussed a very troubling problem about our justice system, about how even improbable date rape claims are automatically believed. Ms. Landers spends three words agreeing with the letter and 54 words talking about an entirely different problem, rape.

The problem we face is that even people who claim to agree that false rape claims are an injustice always seem to want to change the subject. If we are ever going to alter the public discourse, we must insist that they stop talking about rape every time we talk about false rape claims.

Even more problematic than changing the subject, in many cases, they insist that it is somehow worse that a rapist is not convicted and is free to rape other women than it is to deprive an innocent man or boy of his liberty for a rape he didn't commit.

The view is as offensive as it is misinformed.

A wrongful acquittal is a terrible thing, of course. But a wrongful acquittal is never, ever the moral equivalent of a wrongful conviction. When a rape victim sees her rapist go free, the rape victim is not at risk of losing her liberty as is the innocent man or boy imprisoned for a rape he did not commit.

While an individual is capable of doing terrible things to another individual, including rape, the state itself should never fall to the level of a criminal and reasonably risk doing a terrible thing to another human being. Charging a man or boy for rape on the basis of doubtful evidence is among the most terrible things that we, as a society, can do.

By the same token, just aswe must insist that they stop talking about rape every time we talk about false rape claims, we must stop changing the subject to false rape claims every time they talk about rape. We must be willing to engage in an honest discussion about rape.

The operative term is "honest," and by "honest," I mean free of the politicized rhetoric that elevates agendas over facts. We must be willing to talk about how terribly traumatic rape can be to women. About how our young people need to be taught to better communicate their desires. About how the vast majority of rape offenders come not from our college campuses but from lower socioeconomic classes and are under-educated, under-employed, under-skilled, and grew up without fathers. About how the majority of rapes of college-age women take place when the victim is too intoxicated to resist, suggesting the need for the victim to exercise greater care. About how it is scientifically proven that young women in the hook-up culture feel far greater after-the-fact regret, and regret sometimes translates into feeling "used," and feeling "used" sometimes translates into spurious rape claims. And about how the integrity of all rape victims will be enhanced if we eradicate false rape claim.

If they are not willing to engage in that kind of honesty, that is not our fault. For our part, we must not mimic their dishonesty in advocating for the falsely accused.

I came across an old Ann Landers column that brilliantly illustrates perhaps the single greatest stumbling block to raising awareness about the gravity of the false rape problem. A reader of Ann Landers succinctly summed up the fundamental injustice faced by the falsely accused, an injustice as true now as it was then. But it is Ms. Lander's response to the letter that is problematic:

Technology to the rescue of an innocent man in Rotorua, New Zealand.Jacinta Maree Hammond, 23, pleaded guilty to charges of making a false statement to police and wilfully attempting to pervert the course of justice. Hammond purchased a pre-pay phone and sent four text "threats" to herself. More than a week later, she went to police and claimed her (thankfully) unnamed estranged partner was threatening her. Her proof: the text messages she, herself, had authored.

Following her guilty plea, Hammond's lawyer requested the court seek a psychiatric report to help in sentencing, saying her client had not been "functioning well" for some time. The lawyer said her client had little recollection of the incidents. "She recalls some things but the rest is a complete blank," she told the court.

Hammond will be sentenced on July 19. "You should be making preparations in case you are sent to prison," the Judge told her.

Another example of modern technology leaving "traceable footprints" that help justice prevail.

Weiss thinks it was entirely appropriate to parade Dominique Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs past news photographers eager to splash his humiliation across the front pages of the world's newspapers for the public's titillation. This is so even though Strauss-Kahn is presumptively innocent, not a scrap of evidence has been admitted at a trial on charges against him, he has not had any opportunity whatsoever to defend against charges, and he might have been falsely accused.

To justify her belief that it's fair to subject men accused but not convicted of rape to shame and humiliation, even the falsely accused, Weiss posits the following other-worldly statement that is a mirror into the feminist soul: ". . . given the imbalance in the legal system, as far as rape prosecutions go, there seems no great shame — for deterrence's sake — in imposing a little shame."

Read that again. It is among the most astounding, frightening statements this blog has ever printed. It is wholly appropriate, in the feminist mindset, to deter rape by punishing presumptively innocent men who've never been convicted of rape.

Countless men and boys have killed themselves after experiencing the indignity of a false rape claim. I am currently working on a lengthy piece to illustrate this tragic phenomenon. Weiss doesn't concern herself with that triviality, and, in fact, she advocates piling on the humiliation of the falsely accused.

The idea that rape is deterred by punishing the presumptively innocent is morally grotesque, unjust by any measure, and makes us long for the good old days of Star Chamber. Deterrence is properly accomplished through prison sentences imposed only after a trial and a conviction. But why wait for the trial, much less the conviction, to start the penalty phase when it comes to rape claims? An unproven accusation is all you need. You see, in the feminist mindset, not enough rapists are punished, so we can't wait for a conviction. A woman's word is enough. The innocent who get snagged with the guilty are unfortunate but necessary collateral damage, sacrificed on the altar of political correctness for the greater good.

In the rape milieu, the mindset of punishing the presumptively innocent manifests itself in all manner of harsh ways. It was, for example, prominently on display last year when women's groups in Britain blocked a very modest proposal to extend limited anonymity to men accused of, and not yet even charged with, rape. Many objective observers suspected that the effort to block that proposal was due to nothing more than a desire to punish anyone even accused of rape.

Usually feminists aren't very open about this mindset. They understand how hateful it sounds. Weiss' piece is startling for its candor. It should also be a wake-up call to everyone concerned about the rights and the dignity of men and boys falsely accused of rape.

Boston Globe columnist Joanna Weiss, whose feminist sensibilities are clear, candidly says what many have long suspected about the feminists who dominate the public discourse on rape: Weiss thinks it's fair game to shame and humiliate presumptively innocent men who are merely accused, and not convicted, of rape, even though she also candidly admits that men are falsely accused of rape.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Not long after I started writing essays for the False Rape Society blog, I was challenged by a discussion group acquaintence. The subject was a rape story making news at the time, and one of the group members coyly asked me, "So, is this an example of your false rape claims?"My reply was, "Well, did he do it? If he did, it isn't an example of a false rape accusation, is it?"

At the time, the accused's guilt or innocence was unknown, as the story had broken right after the alleged rape had been reported. My challenger's assumption was that I would classify the accusation as false until the accused was proved guilty.

I thought about explaning the presumption of innocence, a cornerstone of American justice, to this person, but I suspected she wouldn't be receptive. Though not radical or militant, she was a self-identified feminist, politically and culturally liberal. Something told me my attempt to explain would amount to wasted words.

But I've had occasion to remember her clueless attitude many times since then. One thing feminists and their satellites like my discussion group acquaintance apparently can't understand (or choose not to understand) is that deeming the accused innocent until proven guilty is not the same thing as claiming that the accuser is making a false claim.

Yet that is exactly the mindset of many people, mostly women but not exclusively, who have come under the influence of gender feminism that pervades our society. It is the inevitable result of the claims of "rape culture" -- the components and characteristics of which are whatever feminists say they are.

This mindset demands that accusers automatically be identified and thought of as victims; and that the accused be considered guilty until proven innocent (and maybe after he's been proved innocent). It is a mindset that views men as guilty even before they do anything wrong. We see it time and time again in feminist blogs, comment threads and quotes in news reports.

So I didn't bother explaining it to my discussion group acquaintence. I'm certain she understands perfectly that deeming the accused innocent until proven guilty is not at all the same thing as claiming that the accusation is false -- just as "rape-culture" feminists know it. They just don't care. They have an agenda to push, and they're not going to let trivialities like truth, justice and innocence stand in their way.

Not long after I started writing essays for the False Rape Society blog, I was challenged by a discussion group acquaintence. The subject was a rape story making news at the time, and one of the group members coyly asked me, "So, is this an example of your false rape claims?"

The Chicago Sun-Times had an editorial yesterday justifying the humiliating "perp walk" of a rumpled and handcuffed Dominique Strauss-Kahn before photographers. The term "perp-walk" refers to the police practice of intentionally parading an arrested suspect through a public place, like a war trophy of a victorious army in primitive times, so that the media may observe and record the event. We discussed "perp walks" in this post earlier in the week.The Sun-Times concedes: "Even Mother Teresa would have looked guilty doing the perp walk." It also admits that such photos "live on in perpetuity." So how does the newspaper justify the "perp walk"? Here's what the editorial said:

Aside from the fact that no one is talking about closing courtrooms, the perp walk "protects" the suspect? Really?! So Mr. Strauss-Kahn should be thankful he was humiliated for the world's titillation? Come again?

It is ironic that the Sun-Times and others don't see that the rationales they employ to defend the perp walk -- about the dangers of closing courtooms and allowing secret trials -- are even more applicable when the question is whether the accuser's identity should be protected from the prying eyes of the public. Yet those same media outlets steadfastly refuse to report on matters that are of public record and that are news when they shield not just the photos but the very names of rape accusers. The double standards at play are breathtaking.

Again, I can't say it any better than the following quotes.

First, here is what the brilliant Prof. Alan Dershowitz once said:

“People who have gone to the police and publicly invoked the criminal process and accused somebody of a serious crime such as rape must be identified. In this country there is no such thing and should not be such a thing as anonymous accusation. If your name is in court it is a logical extension that it should be printed in the media. How can you publish the name of the presumptively innocent accused but not the name of the accuser?”

"Feminists have long argued that rape must be treated like any other crime. But in no other crime are accusers kept behind a wall of anonymity. Treating rape so differently serves only to maintain its mischaracterization as a 'different' kind of crime, loaded with cultural baggage and projections.

"Finally, there is a profound moral issue at stake. Though children’s identities should, of course, be shielded in sex-crime allegations, women are not children. If one makes a serious criminal accusation, one must wish to be treated – and one must treat oneself – as a moral adult. . . . ."It is wrong – and sexist – to treat female sex-crime accusers as if they were children, and it is wrong to try anyone, male or female, in the court of public opinion on the basis of anonymous accusations. Anonymity for rape accusers is long overdue for retirement." http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/01/naomi-wolf-scrap-anonymity-for-rape.html

I typically find Prof. Dershowitz's comments to be compelling; and in this lone instance, I also find Naomi Wolf's compelling.

Transmogrifying women into infants in order to shield their names when they cry rape can't be justified. It certainly can't be justified in light of the rationales posited to justify perp walks.

The Chicago Sun-Times had an editorial yesterday justifying the humiliating "perp walk" of a rumpled and handcuffed Dominique Strauss-Kahn before photographers. The term "perp-walk" refers to the police practice of intentionally parading an arrested suspect through a public place, like a war trophy of a victorious army in primitive times, so that the media may observe and record the event. We discussed "perp walks" in this post earlier in the week.

Here we go again -- a rehash of a story we just ran. A, um, "provocative" and "new" campaign called "Don't Be That Guy" has been launched by Ottawa agencies working to prevent sexual violence against women. If it looks just like Edmonton's campaign last year of the same name, it's because they are exactly the same.Both campaigns are intended to prevent sexual violence against women; in particular, assaults that take place when alcohol is involved.

Both target young men.

Both hold innocent young men who are not rapists responsible for policing other young men.

Both suggest that, in contrast to the young men, young women should do whatever the hell they please.

And both are, I would bet my left testicle, wholly, palpably, wildly ineffective.

Sandy Onyalo, executive director of the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre, described the purpose of this inane campaign: “We’re asking men to ask themselves, how can they take responsibility for their own behaviour, and the behaviour of their friends?” (Emphasis added.)

By "friends," does Onyalo include female friends -- like the drunken young lady sprawled out on the couch in the photo? My guess is that the answer is a resounding "no."

Onyalo continued: “If we don’t bring young men into this discussion, we’re never going to truly combat sexual assault against women. We’re asking men to ask themselves, how can they take responsibility for their own behaviour, and the behaviour of their friends?”

(Emphasis added.)

Keep repeating it until it sinks in: men must not only police their own behaviour, but innocent men who don't rape are responsible for the "behaviour" of their friends.

Now, everyone agrees that men need to police their own "behaviour." But innocent men are also responsible for the rapists?

Not a word about the "behaviour" of the other 51% of the population.

Now let's get this straight: rapists alone have the responsibility to stop rape. And if women have no responsibility to stop rapists, why, on earth, should INNOCENT MEN? Yet, innocent young men, who have essentially no ability to stop rape, are held responsible for stopping rape, while innocent young women, who consciously put themselves in situations where rape is more likely to occur, have no responsibility? Isn't that asymmetrical gender blaming?

Not only is it grossly unfair to blame innocent men for a problem that they haven't caused, it's also wholly ineffective. Among other things, it targets the wrong men. The vast majority of rape offenders come from lower socioeconomic classes and are under-educated, under-employed, and under-skilled. Sexual offenses are like all the other social pathologies we know of: they are largely caused by fatherless households. But that message, which emphasizes the importance of men in the lives of their children, doesn't play well among the progressives who control the sexual grievance industry and who think of men as not only disposable but as far more trouble than they are worth.

My guess is that this brilliant campaign hasn't stopped a single rape. Not one. Innocent men have essentially no ability to stop rape. And why on earth would anyone even harbor a hope that this campaign could possibly get through to a single actual rapist? Will a young rapist standing at the urinal looking at this ad suddenly have a revelation, "Gee, I guess I shouldn't go through with that rape I was intending to inflict on some poor woman"?

My guess is, stopping rape isn't even the point of the campaign. The point of the campaign is to justify the existence of the sexual grievance industry by doing things like this periodically to keep it in the public eye. To make everyone think they are doing something. In order to keep the money flowing (and to keep the brilliant minds behind this campaign employed), they need to stick to the official metanarrative -- that women are always the victims, and that men, guilty by reason of penis, are collectively responsible for the misconduct of a tiny percentage of men.

In other words, it's a microcosm of the last 30 years of all things gender.

Here we go again -- a rehash of a story we just ran. A, um, "provocative" and "new" campaign called "Don't Be That Guy" has been launched by Ottawa agencies working to prevent sexual violence against women. If it looks just like Edmonton's campaign last year of the same name, it's because they are exactly the same.

A woman is arrested after filing a report that someone exposed themselves to her back in October of last year.Then, in January of this year, she added to it, and said that she had been raped. After investigating the claims, they were found to be false, and she has been arrested.

Now, I do have a couple of questions on this: did it really take 8 months to investigate, or did she keep adding details, and then the rape story, and that is what dragged this out so long?

Was anyone specifically named in her report, or was it some vague description of a hapless male? There really is no way to know. Hopefully, after the appearance, we will learn more details.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

There are sound reasons why IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn probably had no choice but to resign, given his predicament. Whether that predicament was self-created is something no one, except in all likelihood two people, knows for certain. Many responsible people called on him to resign simply because the IMF needs a chief who is neither behind bars nor distracted by a pending sexual assault trial that could send him to prison for much of the rest of his life. This is an issue apart from whether he is innocent or guilty of the present charges.

NOW, of course, called on him to resign for different reasons. NOW has prejudged him to be guilty of offenses against women even though he has never been adjudged guilty of any crime, and even before a scrap of evidence has been admitted in a trial on the present charges. That didn't stop NOW's president, Terry O'Neill, from proclaiming: “We’re calling for his resignation based on his pattern and practice of behaviors harming women.” http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/05/18/now-calls-for-imfs-strauss-kahn-to-resign/As always, NOW cares not a whit about justice. NOW is looking for any excuse to promote a pro-woman agenda that has nothing to do with gender equity, and to reaffirm the stereotype that men are evil and women are good, the facts be damned. NOW is its own arbiter of truth, and make no mistake, it makes its decisions purely along gender lines.

Compare NOW's current stance with the one it once took when Wanda Brandstetter, a woman's activist, passed a note to former Illinois Rep. Nord L. Swanstrom, offering him $1,000 if he voted in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment. The incident led to a bribery conviction for Brandstetter. Following the conviction, the head of the local NOW chapter predictably pronounced it a "travesty" and a "gross miscarriage of justice." See here.

Get it? A conviction of a woman in accordance with due process is a "travesty"; rumors and undefended accusations against a man merit that he be booted from his job. (And by the way, when Wanda Brandstetter died last month, she was hailed not as a criminal who was convicted of bribery, but as "an ardent women’s rights, anti-war and civil rights activist whose passion for social justice was so strong she risked a criminal conviction." See here.)

In any event, a public figure's entitlement to continue on in his job is too important to leave to the politicized, and biased, whims of an organization like NOW. NOW has proven time and time again that its pronouncements are not to be taken seriously.

A NOW chapter once called on revered Penn State football coach Joe Paterno to resign over some off-hand, out-of-context remarks about an alleged sexual assault despite the fact that it was absurd to believe the legendary coach was condoning rape. See here.

NOW, predictably, gave Bill Clinton a pass for his purported offenses against women. See here. That was the right call, for the wrong, politicized, reasons.

It would be interesting to compile an exhaustive list of NOW's hateful inanities. Time does not permit it here. Suffice it to say that the epitome of justice is to allow disputed facts about an alleged offense to be aired and adjudicated in accordance with processes reasonably regarded as fair. And, no, fairness should not be confined to the courtroom. Based on NOW's pronouncement here, and in too many instances to recount, it does not believe in anything approaching fairness, or justice, or equity. At least not where men are concerned.

There are sound reasons why IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn probably had no choice but to resign, given his predicament. Whether that predicament was self-created is something no one, except in all likelihood two people, knows for certain. Many responsible people called on him to resign simply because the IMF needs a chief who is neither behind bars nor distracted by a pending sexual assault trial that could send him to prison for much of the rest of his life. This is an issue apart from whether he is innocent or guilty of the present charges.

NOW, of course, called on him to resign for different reasons. NOW has prejudged him to be guilty of offenses against women even though he has never been adjudged guilty of any crime, and even before a scrap of evidence has been admitted in a trial on the present charges. That didn't stop NOW's president, Terry O'Neill, from proclaiming: “We’re calling for his resignation based on his pattern and practice of behaviors harming women.” http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/05/18/now-calls-for-imfs-strauss-kahn-to-resign/

The following is an expansion of a post that was lost last week during Blogger's outage. That post was one of the ones not restored by Blogger when the outage ended.

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿The sexual grievance industry recently dispatched one of its gurus, a specimen that answers to the name of Jackson Katz, to Dartmouth to reduce the typical male student on campus to grotesque caricature, and to declare even the innocents of his gender -- meaning, pretty much every man on campus -- guilty, by reason of penis, of offenses against women. But don't trust me. Read it for yourself here.Katz's shtick, awful as it is, didn't quite tumble to the depths of misandry that another SGI guru, Rus Funk, sank to a few years ago. Just to refresh your recollection:

A question from an audience member about false rape accusations provoked visible emotion to appear on Funk’s face. “Rape and domestic violence have the lowest reporting rates of all crimes,” he said, “and we do have a false reporting problem: too many women who have been raped say that they have not.”

At this assertion, the audience, silent for most of the workshop, applauded. He closed this line of conversation with, “The false issue of false reporting is misogynistic and a result of societal hatred for women.”

Jackson Katz, who doesn't seem to think much of what he recently called "traditional white male conservatism," see here, believes that when it comes to sexual abuse, cautioning women to take the well-lit route back to their dorm doesn't get at the root cause of the problem. "The root cause," he said, "is men." See here.

That's right. Not "men who rape." Not "men who abuse women." Just "men."

Katz believes that "men need to raise the standards of male integrity," see here, by not being mere "bystanders." Men with "moral integrity" are needed "to break complicit male silence." See here.

"Complicit male silence"? You're serious?

Of course, it's exactly the wrong message, to the exactly wrong audience, in the exactly wrong place, and it does more harm than good because, aside from unjustly maligning an entire gender, it cons people into thinking that this kind of spiel is actually capable of reducing sexual assault on campus.

It reminds us of the "Don't be that guy" ad campaign in Edmonton last year, that used blunt and crude words and images to tell males 18-24 years-old not to rape women who drink to excess. The rationale for the ads is this: "Typically, sexual assault awareness campaigns target potential victims by urging women to restrict their behavior. Research is telling us that targeting the behavior of victims is not only ineffective, but also contributes to how much they blame themselves after the assault. That’s why our campaign is targeting potential offenders – they are the ones responsible for the assault and responsible for stopping it." http://www.sexualassaultvoices.com/our-campaign.html

What's the criteria for being a "potential offender"? Why, you have to have an 18-24 year-old penis, of course. One such ad was strategically placed atop urinals in men’s bathrooms in 26 bars around the city. That one reads: “Just because she’s drunk doesn’t mean she wants to fuck." The ads were celebrated as another victory for female empowerment: "[A]t the very least, these ads set a precedent for holding men -- not women -- accountable for the crimes that men commit." http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/112837/graphic_antirape_ad_targets_men Sounds like the writer believes men, as a class, are responsible for what a tiny percentage of criminals do, doesn't it?

Blaming Innocent Men

Preaching to innocent men not to rape is akin tocomplaining to the choir about the parishioners who don't come to church. Rape is a social pathology committed by criminal deviants; it's not the result of a typical guy acting out traditional notions of masculinity. Telling innocent men not to rape has never stopped a single rape. And even if a young rapist happens to stumble upon the message, what good will that do? Will a young rapist in Edmonton have an epiphany while standing at the urinal reading the "don't fuck her" sign: "What? She really doesn't want to fuck me? Shit! I guess I shouldn't stick my dick in her!"

But Jackson Katz is smart enough to know he isn't addressing the actual rapists. So he holds typical, innocent young college men responsible for stopping rape. They must change how they think, he bellows, because they must police their peers -- the vast majority of whom, incidentally, are also not criminals (but why let the facts get in the way of good male bashing session?) -- to be more respectful of women, and this, in some stardust wishfulness of the sexual grievance industry, will reduce rape.

Compare this perfectly inane message with the one young women are fed about rape by the people who dominate the public discourse on that issue: young women need not alter their behavior even a whit to avoid being raped. They can drink to unconsciousness in the bedrooms of men they don't know, even if this increases the statistical likelihood that they will be raped, because to counsel that they exercise even a modicum of common sense is "victim blaming."

Get it? Innocent men, who have no ability to stop rape, are responsible for actually stopping rape; innocent women, who consciously put themselves in situations where rape is more likely to occur, have no responsibility.

Mind you, I'm not blaming the victim. No woman asks to be raped, and men who take advantage of even stupid women are rapists. I'm merely pointing out the hypocrisy of how it's wrong to blame the victim (and it is) but somehow OK to blame innocent people for rapes they don't commit, so long as they have penises.

Jackson Katz's message seems to be that young men have a duty to stop their male peers from "taking advantage" of alcohol-laden young women.

Let's think about the premise that assumes the male is the predator in drunken sex. Why, pray tell, is she a "victim" when a young couple drinks to mutual excess -- which is common -- and then mutually decides, in their mutually reduced state of consciousness, to have sex? In that scenario, he's every bit as much a "victim" as she is. (And, no, I don't think they both should be charged with rape: the mutuality of their stupidity cancels out their shared criminality.) Women and men frequently drink to lower their inhibitions precisely so that they will engage in sexual activity. To pretend otherwise is to toss eons of accumulated knowledge about gender relations onto a scrapheap of politicized indifference.

Women's groups have insisted for decades that women are at least as capable as the guys in every sphere of life -- in the law, medicine, the military, government -- everywhere except the boudoir, where it's 1950 all over again, all the time, and women are as helpless as the most distressed Disney damsels. Yet progressives seem to think they are empowering our daughters by telling them they are powerless.

Men Are Not Bystanders

If there's an underlying theme to the paid male bashers who swoop onto college campuses, it's that men aren't doing enough to stop sexual violence against women. Take Rus Funk. He believes that "men, by and large, continue to ignore, deny, minimize, and otherwise avoid the issues of sexual violence." How does Ruf Funk know this? Because "men still make up only a tiny minority of those present at events addressing sexual assault." See here.

Likewise, Jackson Katz's shtick is the "bystander" bullshit.

Those of us who closely follow the false rape phenomenon find unmistakable patterns of gendered reactions to rape claims, true or false. Based on a fair review of the reported cases, it is reasonable to assert that men, especially young men, typically express far greater outrage over rape claims than do women. The chivalrous outrage over, and the loathing and detestation of, even the hint of violence against women or children is far more typical of our notions of masculinity than is either rape or standing aside and doing nothing while women are raped. And Rus Funk: the reason typical males won't attend your male bashing sessions is because men understand that your notions of masculinity and theirs are two very different things.

One need not invoke the hanging trees of the Old South, or the Duluth lynchings or any of the others, to know that a cry of "rape" typically elicits a visceral reaction of outrage in men, often exceeding the actual harm inflicted by the crime. Just read the cases we've collected on this blog over the past couple of years. Need to be reminded?

Remember Daniel Cicciaro, 17? He was shot when he angrily confronted another young man after a girl falsely claimed the latter had raped her.

Remember Sumbo Owoiya, 18? He was shot through his front door when a 15-year-old girl falsely told her boyfriend he had raped her.

Remember Cory Headen, 19? He was beaten to death with a baseball bat by another 19-year-old man when two girls claimed he had raped one of them.

Remember John Chalmers, 47? He had to relearn everything he knew after a man beat him under the wrong-headed belief Mr. Chalmers had raped his sister.

Remember Devin LaSalle? Darrell Roberson shot him to death when he caught him with Mr. Roberson's wife, and the wife falsely claimed she was being raped.

Remember Cody Wightman, 25? He was beaten with a claw hammer by a group of young men after a young woman falsely told them Mr. Wightman had raped her.

Remember Michael Zenquis? He was beaten by an angry mob of men in Philadelphia after he was wrongly accused of raping an 11-year-old girl.

Remember Damon Hadley, 17? He was savagely beaten on his way out of school by his girlfriend's father after she falsely told her father Damon had raped her.

And I could go on and on and on. Go look them up on this blog if you don't believe me.

Bullshit. Men's chivalrous overreaction to cries of rape is far more representative of masculinity than is rape itself or standing off to the side while women are rape. While this overreaction scarcely something to be proud of, it is the polar opposite of what people like Jackson Katz and Rus Funk preach.

Addressing the Wrong Group of Men

If the sexual grievance industry is so intent on talking to men about rape, they should all head to the inner city, not college campuses where it's not one-in-four or one-in-five or one-in-four before Thanksgiving of Freshman year, or any of the other manifestations of the "one-in-whatever" canard we see everywhere: it's more like one-in-one-thousand-eight-hundred-seventy-seven: see here.

The vast majority of rape offenders come from lower socioeconomic classes and are under-educated, under-employed, and under-skilled. See, among many others, Thornhill and Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion; Batten, Sexual Strategies: How Females Choose Their Mates. In Against our Wills, Susan Brownmiller demonstrated that disadvantaged blacks comprise a greatly disproportionate percentage of rapists.

So why does the sexual grievance industry spend so much time at places like Dartmouth, where there is a decided shortage of socioeconomically disadvantaged young men?

To answer that question, you need to follow the money. You see, it's easier to pretend that our college campuses are cisterns of predatory male sexual violence than to go to where there's really a problem but where you won't get paid.

It's "The Music Man" all over, and only Professor Harold Hill can save River City from the terrible trouble that Professor Harold Hill has concocted out of whole cloth.

The irony, of course, is that the socioeconomic aspect to rape doesn't fit the official narrative of the sexual grievance industry. You see, there is an unmistakable correlation between the absence of fathers from inner city homes and the prevalence of every social pathology that affects inner city kids, including rape. It turns out that when it comes to rape, toxic "masculinity" isn't the problem at all. The problem is the absence of masculinity -- fatherless homes.

We've removed male role models from the lives of our inner city sons, then when those boys act up, we have the audacity to blame it on “patriarchy.”

The Sex Problem on Campus

That's not to say that sexual experiences on campus are uniformly favorable. Far from it. The fact that unfavorable sexual experiences generally are not rape should not be the end of the discussion.

To reduce unfavorable sexual experiences on campus, we need to instill greater sexual maturity in our young people. Binge drinking combined with runaway, exploding hormones, and the freedom of being away from home for the first time, too often leads to decisions that while likely consensual, wouldn't be made in the glaring, sober light of day.

Refusing to teach our young people the truth -- that there is a gender gap where women have far greater after-the-fact regret than men, and that men have an enhanced sex drive -- doesn't help matters. Maybe instead of preaching the feminist mantra that young women should be free to "party like the guys" we should be teaching all our young people not to party so much.

Heaven forbid.

But the worst thing we can do is what we're doing: mischaracterizing unfavorable sex, or sex one party later regrets, as "rape," and holding males, both those in bed with the women and those who are supposedly "bystanders," solely responsible for young women's dissatisfaction.